EVENTS
Tees Business LIVE: June 17, 2026
BOHO X, MIDDLESBROUGH
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH MUCKLE LLP
Panellists- the June Tees Business LIVE featured( from left) Teesside University associate professor Alessandro Di Stefano, Situate AI founder Joanna Wake, Outrank operations director Francesca Kosina and Muckle LLP head of commercial Alex Craig.
PICTURES: CHRIS BOOTH
EMBRACE, NOT REPLACE
Why people remain our most valuable asset
Businesses must embrace artificial intelligence, but they should never lose sight of the importance of people.
That was the clear message from Tees Business LIVE’ s June event, which brought together four leading business voices to discuss the future of business in an AI era.
Held in partnership with law firm Muckle LLP, the event saw the leaders in the fields of AI, technology, digital marketing and law focus on the theme“ Disrupt or be Disrupted”, examining both the opportunities and risks presented by rapidly evolving AI technologies.
Alex Craig, head of commercial at Muckle LLP, urged organisations to take a measured approach to AI adoption rather than embracing it simply because it is the latest trend.
“ The thing that I see a lot at the moment is jumping on the bandwagon,” she said.
“ You need to be thinking what are the challenges for your organisation, what technology might help with those challenges and what are you wanting to achieve?”
Rather than focusing solely on speed and cost reduction, Alex believes businesses should concentrate on improving the quality of their products and services.
She said many businesses were“ really obsessed with speed and cost saving,” but added:“ That’ s not really what we should be focusing on.
“ Instead, we should be thinking what are all the tasks that are really inefficient, really mundane, that we could speed up.”
The discussion quickly turned to authenticity and trust – two qualities that all four panellists agreed will become increasingly important as AI becomes more sophisticated.
Francesca Kosina, operations director at Middlesbrough-based digital marketing specialists Outrank – the newly crowned Tees Tech Business of the Year – believes businesses that rely too heavily on AI-generated content risk undermining customer relationships.
“ People want to talk to humans,” said Francesca.
“ When you disguise that or when you’ re saying that you’ re talking to somebody and it’ s actually an AI agent or an AI bot, then that devalues the relationship as well as the trust and the authenticity of that brand.”
Francesca explained that AI is already transforming the digital marketing landscape, particularly through AIpowered search tools that are changing how customers find information online.
“ We no longer search the way that we used to,” she said.“ The way people use the internet has completely changed.” Joanna Wake, founder of AI skills
training business Situate AI and UK ambassador for She AI – a global platform promoting AI skills for women – said businesses should view AI as a tool to support people rather than replace them.
“ It is a confidence issue,” said Joanna.“ Most people have Microsoft, which most large companies do, but it’ s very rare that they’ re using it.”
Joanna stressed the importance of implementing AI responsibly, ensuring that systems reflect an organisation’ s values, ethics and brand identity.
“ When you are setting up something, it needs to be set up with the right parameters, under your ethics and your strategy, and with the right brand voice,” she said.
“ Essentially you’ ve got to have the human in the loop.”
Alessandro Di Stefano, associate professor in artificial intelligence at Teesside University, agreed that human oversight remains critical.
“ The problem is that AI is becoming a lot more autonomous,” said Alessandro.“ But our role as humans is accountability.”
He also expressed concern that younger generations could become overly reliant on AI if critical thinking skills are neglected.“ We need to learn how to be humans first,” said Alessandro.“ They need to learn how to think for themselves.”
Tees Business LIVE events are organised by Tees Business in partnership with series associate North East Chamber of Commerce.
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